Sheryl Crow gives off an air of fragility and strength in equal parts. The
voice on her new album, Detours, is hugely triumphant and also deeply sad.
It’s the culmination of a dramatic three years. In 2005 she was happily
engaged to Lance Armstrong, an American hero, Olympic cyclist, seven-times
winner of the Tour de France, who, against all odds, had beaten testicular
and lung cancer. She was multi-Grammy-winning. She represented a
noncorporate American music scene, yet despite that was vastly successful.
She was planning her wedding dress when suddenly her relationship with
Armstrong ended.
That wasn’t the only shock. Two weeks after the split, Crow, now 46, who had
many accolades with immediately singable songs like All I Wanna Do and
Leaving Las Vegas, had further devastating news. She had breast cancer.
“I think the irony was the hardest thing. Having been in a relationship with
someone who is maybe the world’s most well-known cancer survivor, that was
irony,” she stresses the word in her breathy, quiet, rasping voice.
“They say when you get diagnosed with cancer you’ve probably had it for five
years. So the timing was strange, wasn’t it?” She asks the question as if
she’s still searching for the answer.
She says this quietly, with no sense of bitterness, because her life has
turned around. Completely. After three years in a creative wilderness, her
album Detours is vibrant and defiant, emotional. “It’s the culmination of
the last three years. It has been joyous, but I have also been frightened out
of my wits. It’s been humbling, relationships have fallen apart, and it’s
been alarming, with breast cancer. And then I adopted my little boy, and
that’s been transformative,” she says, with a triumphant smile.
She’s in a Manhattan hotel room looking languid, and still a poster girl for
boho chic. She’s wearing Ralph Lauren black biker boots, jeans and a green
velvet ruffly jacket. Her hair tousled and perfectly caramelled, the kind of
hair Sienna Miller has spent her life trying to achieve. She’s intense,
thoughtful. It’s almost as if she wouldn’t have anything to say at all if
these terrible and then wonderful things hadn’t happened to her. She might
have disappeared, and that would have terrified her. She has always been the
sort of person who feels intensely.
“I used to think that I am only loved if I am achieving. The more comfortable
you become, the less edgy. Now I feel compelled to scream at the top of my
lungs. My desire to get played on the radio is a thing of the past, so that
creates an enormous freedom, a truthful dialogue, and I’m able to write
about things differently – the things we are all talking about.
Detours of where we’ve gone in our lives and who we’ve gone back
to be. But as we address these detours, I would be shocked if any of my
songs got played on the radio. When I listen to that I don’t hear anything
that’s addressing what’s happening – what’s going on in the news, the war,
the climate-change crisis. In this country [the United States] at least,
it’s censor-based. We saw it with the Dixie Chicks.”
In 2003 the Dixie Chicks spoke out against President Bush, just before the
invasion of Iraq. For a while they were punished and nobody played their
music. They were, however, able to bounce back, and last year were awarded
multiple Grammys for their album Taking the Long Way. Her point is, you have
to be fearless.
“Wyatt [her adopted son] was three weeks old and I was working on this record.
I couldn’t have fathomed the influence that he would have. It’s one thing to
love something freely for the first time. But it was having someone
completely helpless who relied on you. I felt an urgency. I wanted to write
about the war, climate change, what I thought about love, all with a new
intensity. It made me feel this was no time to be editing myself. I wasn’t
worried about who’s going to think what about me.” One senses that that in
itself was an enormous challenge, perhaps even greater psychologically than
dealing with her cancer.
Recovering from cancer and having a new baby is bound to turn your world
upside down. The idea of embracing life and death at the same time. At the
time, all she said was: “I am inspired by all the brave women who have faced
this battle before me.” She directed people with questions about cancer to
contact the LiveStrong survivor care group. The relationship with Armstrong
had fallen apart, only the cancer link survived. Fallen apart is a phrase
Crow uses many times about the relationship. She doesn’t blame. She never
says who left who.
But there’s something in the way she says it that implies catastrophe.
The decision to adopt a baby began just as she was recovering from cancer. In
2006 she had invasive surgery followed by radiation treatment. Luckily, no
chemo was required. But the biological clock was not only ticking: her dream
of the perfect family with Armstrong had been shattered. There was no time
to wait for a new relationship to be a mother.
“I began the adoption process right after I finished my radiation treatment. I
have always felt like I was meant to be a mum, but I had been stuck on how I
was supposed to do that. I had kept it from happening because I had believed
that you are supposed to look for a family with a mum and a dad. I was
forced to open my mind to other options. He came in May last year.”
Although she is clearly besotted with Wyatt, I doubt it was easy for her to
give up on the stereotypical bliss of two parents, one family, one love.
Certainly it was something that she’d always looked for. “I was raised in
that sort of family. My parents are still married after 53 years. We are
very close-knit and I had always thought that’s what it would be like. When
my relationship fell apart just before I went into radiation, I thought,
‘I’m going to rethink this.’” This is the only allusion she gives to the
idea that she and Armstrong planned to start a family and that she had to
give up on that. The relationship lasted for two years. He was 10 years her
junior, but in spirit and in suffering obviously much older. He is reputed
to be worth $80m and is a formidable man with a formidable mother, with whom
Sheryl got on very well. She seemed to put her career on hold to be his
constant support, and although she was in great shock when the relationship
ended, she didn’t have time to stay shocked because of the cancer diagnosis.
It’s clear she doesn’t want to blame him for anything, so talks around the
split rather than says what directly happened. Perhaps even she is not so
sure of that because of the shock that surrounded it.
“I had always considered myself completely healthy. I’d taken that for
granted, so when I got diagnosed with something that was so out of my
control, it was a shock realisation. Everything you count on can suddenly go
out of the window. But it was an informative process. I was very lucky that
they caught it very early and I didn’t have to have chemo.”
She seems to have rethought her life very quickly and in a positive way. But
she adopted Wyatt after concluding: “I am going to look forward to the
opportunities that I still have. I’ve had a lot of conversations with women
my age who have been in relationships that didn’t work and I don’t think the
idea of adopting or using a sperm donor should ever feel like a consolation
prize. I am so glad I have this little guy. I am the great, strong family
unit now, and he’s going to grow up with love. I also know whoever comes
into our lives, he’s going to be the major gatekeeper.” She says with
sadness: “You know, I’ve had a history of dating people who were, let’s say,
a little self-consumed, and I think that Wyatt will be a fantastic gauge as
to who comes and who goes. So in that way I can’t feel sad. I can’t want it
any other way, because it feels right.”
It’s almost as if Wyatt has not just made for a new creative urgency, but has
forced her to be less recklessly vulnerable and free with her emotions. In
fact, he has turned her whole personality around. Before Wyatt, she says, “I
was a glass-half-empty person. I was unable to look at the positive. Now
it’s the other way around. I can truly attest to the fact that having been
diagnosed with cancer created a paradigm shift in my life. I’m not afraid to
be the glass-half-full person now. Before, it was as if I relied on things
falling apart. There was safety in that. If I was already assigned to that
idea, I wasn’t going to get crushed, you know.” Despite the fact that she
looks so tiny, she’s compact and uncrushable.
The stories of her past emotional conflicts and failed relationships have made
for interesting song lyrics, but not necessarily for a happy life. She once
said that success was not conducive to stable relationships. “The fact that
you are seemingly so large makes other people feel small. It can be very
emasculating.” In the beginning her relationship with Lance Armstrong seemed
the most stable. She’s always gone for a high achiever, even before she was
one herself.
She was 31 by the time she had her first hit, and before that she was writing
songs for Eric Clapton, whom she also had a relationship with. She denies
that My Favorite Mistake was written about him, but the rumour persists. She
was a backing singer for Michael Jackson before that. She also dated the
Hollywood actor and writer Owen Wilson (the star of Wedding Crashers and The
Darjeeling Limited who recently attempted suicide). It’s always been the
troubled and intense that she’s gone for. Does she see a pattern in her
relationships?
“Yes. I have been a caretaker ever since I was tiny, wanting to make everyone
feel great. Our breasts represent nurturing. Many cancer sufferers feel that
they never allowed anyone to nurture them, so all that energy was constantly
going out of their bodies. If you go through breast cancer you want to check
that about yourself. You want to make sure you don’t do that.”
It does seem extremely strange that you were nurturing a cancer survivor and
manifested the disease after the relationship fell apart. “Yes, it’s like,
as soon as your finals are over and it’s the summer vacation you get sick.
It’s the minute you stop, the wounds reveal themselves. In the song Make It
Go Away, which is directly inspired by having had radiation, I say, ‘Was
love the disease and the disease the cure?’” What she means by that is that
cancer forced her to change everything about her life. “I always thought I had
everything under control, and if there was something I wanted I had to work
hard and just go get it. When you get diagnosed, it’s something completely
out of your control and you realise ‘I can’t control my body.’ Everything
that you count on is suddenly out of the window. You have to find some
humility. It was a painful but definitely informative process.
“And also having Wyatt. I feel more urgency to write about things and to write
from a truthful place. He’s already been on the road once with me, but he
pretty much slept the whole time. Now he’s crawling around and very curious
but I think he’s going to be a great little traveller.”
Crow isn’t naive enough to think that everything is neatly packaged up now. “I
don’t think it’s easy to learn your lessons, though. Hopefully I’ve learnt
what I need to know. I believe that 85% of all relationships are based on
timing. Where you are in your life and what you desire. I know I want
different things now because Wyatt’s here. That said, I think I will always
risk hurt when it comes to love. I will always believe that there is a great
love for me out there. And I have had great deep love, so I don’t feel like
I’ve missed out on anything. Next time, though, I would like to be involved
with a grown-up. I’m looking forward to feeling in love again. I don’t know
who this person is going to be. I’m going to let myself be surprised. I
think sometimes you create roles for yourself in relationships and you stop
being who you are. I have learnt not to do that.”
She’s also much less into pursuing extremes. In the old days when she was
touring she admits: “We drank every night before and after the show. It’s
not like that any more, and I don’t feel I’m missing anything, except the
headache. Of course I’ll have a glass of wine now and again. But partying
and stuff is not fun. I’d rather sit around and talk to people I enjoy.”
She’s still in touch with Owen Wilson, who is one of her great loves. They met
in 1998 and were together for a few years. “I love Owen and I root for him.
He’s a darling. He has one of the most original, creative minds of his age
group. I love him. I hated to see that he was so troubled recently. Anyone
would hate to see someone you love go through that.” She doesn’t say how
much she is still in touch with Armstrong. Although he sent messages of
support throughout her cancer treatment, there was no reunion. I am sure she
felt the space he once occupied sorely, even though she was surrounded by
friends and family. It seems she was a casualty of an idyllic childhood and
kind parents. She grew up not only believing in their marriage, but in them.
She was raised in the small town of Kennett, Missouri, music-teacher mother,
lawyer father. “My parents have been my biggest influence. I was raised with
a strong work ethic and have measured my worth by my productivity. I lived
by that until now. I don’t feel so compelled to be so respected.” Her father
was also a trumpet player and her mother sang beautifully. “With so much
soul and serenity. I really do enjoy my parents. They are my favourite
people.”
Certainly she felt a pressure to live up to their great example. So much so,
she never really came to terms with her own success, and always had to fight
her tendency to “embrace the bad things”.
Her father had death threats in the 1970s as he was defending somebody against
the Ku Klux Klan. “As a kid I’m not sure I understood the bravery that that
took. I am the third child of a family of four kids, and needing my parents’
approval translated into my career and my life.
“If you have four kids you can’t be privy to every little thing that’s going
on in your children’s heads. You’re doing the best you can. My parents were
always there. We never grew up feeling one of us was favourite or least
favourite. At a certain point you have to forgive people around you for
being fallible. I needed approval. There were definitely pitfalls to being a
person that could only feel love when they are jumping through hoops. The
more successful I became, the bigger the hoop was. For instance, I could win
a Grammy and the next day it was as if it never happened. You can’t own it
because you don’t feel you deserve it. So that’s one lesson I have learnt.
Love should not be attached to accomplishment.”
She says in that way she doesn’t worry about the success of her new album,
only that it’s from her soul and she’s speaking the truth. “I’m not looking
for anything. I’m just trying to trust who I am and see where that
takes me.”
She’s empathic and interested, so you care where it takes her. For the
moment she lives on a farm in Nashville.
“We are doing organic gardening and raising our own chickens.” She recycles
her Versace cast-offs by donating them to a shop in her home town called
Sheryl the Peril. The money goes to a children’s home. “I love shopping and
I love getting rid of things. It’s very freeing.” Crow is still embracing
extremes, taking it all in and giving it all away.
Sheryl Crow’s new single, Now That You’re Gone, is out on May 5
